A Bright Spot
This is the difference between speculative development and grassroots community improvement: The former is done by people seeking short-term gains, the latter by those who have been putting in sweat equity for years, because they know it will pay off in the form of a stronger city. The new Beacon Theater, containing both Story Screen and apartments, prove that building housing and improving a city's cultural and civic scene don't have to be an either/or proposition. But how many other developers will follow their lead? Tensions continue to rise as Beaconites push back in zoning board meetings and at the ballot box, while developers insist that their new buildings, some of which are full of apartments priced two to three times the average price in the city, are the future of Beacon. And a friend of one of the developers recently wrote a letter to the editor in the local paper, the Highland Current (which, full disclosure, I write for), suggesting that the citizenry anti-development fervor proves that Beacon has become hostile to outsiders. But anyone who thinks the city is hostile to outsiders has never bothered to come inside.
No one embodied this communal spirit more than the Beaconite who would have turned 100 years old this month, folk icon and activist Pete Seeger. When Pete passed away in 2014, I asked many people in town to tell me about the first time they met him. Many of the stories began the same way: "I went down to a meeting of the Beacon Sloop Club to check it out, Pete saw me walk in and saw that I was new, smiled at me, got up, and offered me his chair."
That Sloop Club that Seeger helped found is still going strong over 40 years later, still offering free weeknight sails aboard the Woody Guthrie throughout the summer. Head down for a sail and see what the river does to you. Talk to the all-volunteer crew about what they do for the boat, for the river, and for the city. If you don't walk away thinking about what you're doing to make sure that all these things are still going to be there for the next generation, then that's on you.
If you've come to Beacon to make a killing, expect resistance. If you've come to make a living, someone here will always pull up a chair for you.
